


the good side of things

by ultmyouimina



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/F, friends to lovers of course
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-04
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-03-16 07:28:29
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29203602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ultmyouimina/pseuds/ultmyouimina
Summary: Age sixteen ends feeling like the worst in Catra's life because she loves Adora.She loves Adora like she's seen in the movies, from first dances to kisses to weddings. She looks at Adora, ever bright and warm like a sunbeam, and wants it all like an ache that won't go away.
Relationships: Adora & Catra (She-Ra), Adora/Catra (She-Ra)
Comments: 10
Kudos: 169





	the good side of things

**Author's Note:**

> my first time writing for catradora :D i've been wanting to for a while now and i finally did!!! it's 4.20am, my left leg fell asleep, and i'm extremely hungry as i type this

In the summer of eighth grade, they see a UFO.

Catra is more than skeptical, throwing out words like aeroplane, star, satellite, and anything but UFO because she doesn't think they exist. Adora has always been more of a dreamer, always been the one to come up with stories of princesses and knights and dragons. She insists it's a UFO, eyes so wide with awe that Catra can't find it in her heart to disagree any longer. The next morning, when Adora tells Mara and the other kids what she saw, they all giggle. "I saw it too," Catra defends, and the smile on Adora's face is so much more important than the incredulous look on everyone else's.

It's the same summer Catra runs into an electric fence, not paying attention because she has her eyes on Adora the whole time they're racing. Adora screams and screams into the quiet of the afternoon when the fence crackles nastily and Catra keels over into the dirt with a yell of pain. She ends up flat on her back, out of breath and squinting up at where Adora's face eclipses the sun. Adora's fingers brush clumsily through her unruly mane of hair, sweeping stray strands away from her face, muttering _please be okay, please be okay, please be okay._

It's also the summer Catra steals a box cutter from the stationery store, hellbent on making sure that Adora can finish her cardboard model of the group home she was doing for art class. The only box cutter they could find in the home was rusty, with the tip of the blade broken into a blunt edge. No matter how carefully Adora tried, and how steadily Catra held the pieces of cardboard still for her, every cut came out in harsh, jagged lines.

So Catra had stolen a brand new one, the words tumbling out of her nervously as she presented it to Adora with shining eyes. _I stole this for you_ , she said, like she was telling Adora that the sky is blue, or she was gifting Adora with yet another rat she'd caught from the kitchen. Adora had clapped a hand over Catra's mouth and threw the box cutter to the floor before kicking it under the bed, _always_ the stickler for rules. _You can't do that!_ she hisses, eyes wide and frantic, immediately feeling guilty when Catra shrinks back and whimpers.

She tells Catra that she's sorry after, because she's generous with apologies in a way that Catra never learned to be. And Catra doesn't tell her that it's okay, doesn't offer a smile or apology of her own. She climbs down from the top of the bookshelf, teary-eyed, letting out a small sigh of relief when Adora scratches the sweet spot at the base of her ears and pulls her in. 

Adora has always been the talkative one when it's just the two of them – animated, excitement so poorly contained that she trips over words and talks way too fast as she tells Catra about her theory that Rogelio could have had dinosaur ancestors. She talks to Catra in a way she never does with others, so free of inhibition that her cheeks are always flushed and mouth pulled up into a smile. Catra, in turn, sits and listens and nods along, sometimes turning away to fiddle with something else. Still, she keeps her ears perked to follow the sound of Adora's ramblings, face thoughtful as her attention never strays from what Adora is saying. It's a special kind of care she never bothers to show anyone else.

That same summer, Adora thinks for the first time that she loves Catra.

She loves Catra in the way one thirteen year-old loves another, with that joined-at-the-hips, us-against-the-world kind of affection. The kind that gives her a thrill when she's sent home early with a bloody nose after punching Catra's bully in the face on the last day of school before break. Her nose stings when Catra prods at it then declares that it's not broken, and it sucks to see the disappointment on Mara's face when she gets picked up from school, but then she looks back and sees Catra jumping about behind the school fence, grinning from ear to ear as she waves a wild goodbye, and Adora thinks _oh boy, it sure is worth it._

That afternoon Catra comes home red in the face because she runs all the way from the bus stop, banging the front door open so loudly that Adora flinches from her corner. 

"Adora!" 

Catra thunders down the hall and up the stairs two at a time, schoolbag slamming against her back as she runs. When the door to their room is flung open, Adora is already waiting with open arms for Catra to fall into.

"Catra," she murmurs her name like a sigh of relief, hugging her friend close. "Sorry you had to come home alone."

Catra is purring, rubbing her soft cheek back and forth against Adora's collarbones. "Don't be an idiot," she grumbles, winding her tail loosely around Adora's thigh. "I thought it was cool, how you stood up for me." 

"Really?"

"Yeah it was like, badass and everything." Catra finally pulls back to take a good look at Adora's face, wincing a little when she sees how her nose is already swelling with an ugly purple. "It sucks that you got hurt though."

Adora scoffs, flexing her arms around Catra as if to tell her not to worry. There's a look on her face, the kind she gets when Razz comes by once a month to drop off berry pies for dessert, or when Catra makes that rare trilling sound when she's happy. It's a starry-eyed look that makes Catra squirm and turn away, because up close Adora is just sopretty it hurts.

Adora had braces put in the month before, after one annoying year of begging Mara for them. She still cries sometimes when it hurts, and hates when Catra sticks a finger into her mouth to poke around at them. And sure, the kids in their grade tease her for having metal on her teeth because Glimmer the weird kid had them too, but Catra had once let it slip that she thought it was cute and Adora neverforgot that, or the way Catra flushed a deep scarlet red and turned back to her math homework with her tail lashing.

Adora smirks now, flashing a mouthful of her braces even if Catra can't see. "So," she nudges her chin across the top of Catra's head. "I was all strong and tough, huh?"

"Not tough enough to ever beat me though," Catra teases, wriggling out of Adora's grasp and pouncing on her. Then they're both on the floor, trading headlocks and fake punches until Adora rolls away panting about her busted nose.

She calls for a truce, but Catra, competitive as she is, is having none of it. 

"I won," Catra singsongs, tail swaying to an imaginary beat as she straddles Adora's hips. "No, you did no–" Adora gets a faceful of Catra's tail when she tries to protest. "– _mmfffph_. Hey, watch the nose!"

"Admit it," Catra demands, leaning down so their bodies are pressed flush together and her fangs almost graze Adora's cheek. Her eyes glint where they catch the sunlight, one liquid honey and one icy blue, framed by wisps of messy hair. 

Adora sputters uselessly, half-hearted in her attempts to push Catra off of her. "Fine," she concedes, looking away with cheeks burning and an unfamiliar heat in her chest because Catra is preening above her looking like _that_ and it's almost breathtaking. "Fine, you won."

Later, Adora squirms non-stop while Catra slathers bruise cream over the tender skin of her nose. "Stop moving, idiot," Catra hisses, but she's all bark and no bite, really, because her breath is hitching audibly each time she looks up and finds Adora staring.

"It's cold," Adora groans, jerking her head away again, and Catra gives up.

Lonnie whistles when she walks in on them, and it's a rude reminder that people actually exist in this home outside of their little bubble. "Get. Out. Lonnie." Catra says, reaching around Adora to snatch a pillow off the bed. She brandishes it at Lonnie, shaking it in a way she hopes is threatening. Adora is giggling for Catra to stop, which is really the only reason she isn't kicking Lonnie's sorry butt down the street right now. 

Lonnie is too used to Catra's empty threats by now, so she's advancing bravely towards the bed. "Just wanted to see for myself," she explains, whistling again as she tips Adora's face this way and that to look at the shiner on her nose. Catra hisses at the sight of Adora's face in Lonnie's hands, claws extending, but then Adora looks over and places a soft hand on her thigh, smiling like a dork with her braces. Catra's heart stutters in its place under her ribs, and she flops over in surrender, pressing her face to Adora's lap and hoping Lonnie will leave.

Lonnie does, after what feels like ten long, torturous years. Adora rolls Catra off her lap with another giggle and a snort. "Earth to Catra?" No response but the small twitch of a tail. Adora tries again, putting on her best imitation of that space movie Mara put on during the last movie night. "Earth to Catra?"

Catra tries to stay still longer but her tail is already swaying happily, her lips fighting a smile because Adora just will not stop with the space talk. Finally, she cracks a blue eye open, looking back into Adora's. "Your robot voice is the _worst,_ " she drawls, which earns an offended gasp and Catra groans because she just knows that Adora will speak only in the stupid robot voice for a whole week. 

"No," she warns, when Adora opens her mouth again. Catra flops back on the bed like a dying animal. "No robot voice, please, I'm begging."

Adora taps a finger to her chin in mock thought, hemming and hawing. She grins deviously and cocks her head. "I'm. Sorry. Catra." she says in monotone, and Catra groans so loudly in despair that it surprises her. 

-

Mara is hardly strict with them now that they're thirteen, so the first day of summer break finds them hopping the fence for the first time and running into the line of trees behind their home. Ten weeks is plenty of time. Catra begs for one day of relaxation before they start going places but Adora just won't stop bouncing in front of the window and pacing around the room so Catra finally wrenches herself away from the soft, soft sheets and packs their day bag.

They walk in circles under the trees for what feels like an hour before Catra starts using her claws, slashing at trunks to mark their path. It works, because in five minutes they break out into the other side of the tree line, sunlight and heat suddenly flooding down now that there are no leaves to cover them.

"A creek!" Adora is already pulling her shirt off, throwing her shoes and socks down on the bank. The creek isn't wide, but it's deep up to Adora's knees and runs longer than Catra can see the end of. 

"Be careful," Catra calls, taking her own time with unlacing her shoes. Adora keeps splashing around, but throws two thumbs up and a smile that leaves Catra dizzy. 

We should draw this," Adora says later, shaking her blonde hair out of its ponytail to dry. Her shoulders are burned an angry red which Catra keeps trying to soothe with handfuls of creek water. It might not be working but hey, they're thirteen and sunscreen isn't part of their current inventory stock.

"Do you know how to draw," Catra half-asks when she settles back down next to Adora, because she already knows the answer. "No," Adora says after a moment's consideration. Her index finger is tracing lazy circles up and down Catra's thigh, and then she throws her head back and laughs. "You're right, it's a stupid idea."

Catra is stuck staring, unable to look away from Adora while she laughs. Her heartbeat thuds in her ears like a roaring wave, loud and erratic. There's that feeling in her chest again, the one that leaves her breathless and dizzy. She tried to explain it to Adora once, months ago, but Adora's face had only shifted from confusion to concern. _"Do you have heartburn, Catra?"_ And well, shit, she stops trying because how can Catra tell her best friend it only happens when she's around without it coming out all wrong?

"We should draw this," she blurts, when she comes back to her senses and realises Adora is staring at her with a strange look on her face. 

Adora beams in response, then frames the creek with a little rectangle that she forms with her fingers. She pans the makeshift viewfinder to where Catra is grinning at her.

"Two pretty things," she says, feeling all too delighted when Catra lets out an involuntary trill.

-

"Isn't it crazy," Adora starts saying, reaching across Catra for the blue colour pencil. "How the creek has been right behind the house all these years and we never knew?" 

Catra hums, and snatches the blue back. She trades Adora for a turquoise instead. "The creek water was not blue, Adora, and I need that for the sky."

Adora rolls her eyes, but Catra can tell she's still waiting for an answer. 

"It's weird to think about," she finally says, switching the blue for green to start on the trees. "That all these things exist and we just live our lives hoping to stumble upon them one day." There's a soft hum from Adora as she shades turquoise into the water. 

She thinks of their creek, coloured in like a kindergartener's artwork on some loose paper they found. She thinks of all the creeks tucked away in different corners of the world, and how they don't exist to anyone until they've been discovered. She feels Catra's tail sweeping across the back of her leg, and wonders if Catra loves her the same way she does.

-

By mid July, the bruise on Adora's nose is yellow-green and the feeling in Catra's chest has turned uncomfortable in a way that feels like she's growing into a new skin and her old one is splitting apart at the seams.

Adora is particularly chatty tonight. Her head is on Catra's stomach, blonde hair fanned around it like a halo, and every time Catra's stomach gurgles she giggles and points it out. "Very funny, Adora," is the response she gets each time, but it only makes her laugh more because annoying Catra is her favourite pastime. 

The roof tiles hurt where they dig into Catra's spine but she holds her breath and keeps still, so afraid that if she moves then Adora will shift away or the feeling in her chest will spill over and she'll say something stupid. Whichever kills her first.

Adora speaks again, undeterred by Catra's uncharacteristic silence today. Usually she doesn't stand all the teasing, fires back with some of her own until they're both on equal ground. Not today though; today feels different, bigger somehow. Maybe because they're laying on the roof and Mara hates it but she doesn't know, or that they're under the vast expanse of night sky that goes on further than either of them can see, interrupted by stars and the shadows of trees. Or maybe it's because she's here, head on Catra's stomach and her best friend is humming a song that they made up when they were seven.

"Do you remember when we met?"

Catra stops humming. "Yeah," she whispers, feeling something like dread settle in the pit of her stomach.

It was raining the day they met. Adora had gotten a perfect score on her spelling test and Mara stuck it up on the fridge. She was standing in front of the fridge admiring her handwriting for the tenth time that afternoon when she heard a commotion at the door.

Catra was only a half-grown runt then, fur all wet from the rain. She gets left on Mara's doorstep in a _cage,_ hissing and clawing so violently that even Mara was afraid of her. Adora was different. She had come running from the kitchen, no trace of fear in her eyes even when Catra's claws caught on her forearm. 

When they got Catra into the house and out of the cage she took off running on all fours, finding the safest nook to curl up in. She didn't come out from under Adora's bed for days, until one day Adora peeked under there and said very matter-of-factly in the way that five year-olds talk, " _I was dropped at Mara's house in a box too, you know."_

Now, eight years later on a roof with Adora, the memory doesn't feel as bitter as it used to be. 

-

Age sixteen starts out feeling like the worst in Adora's life, because the universe decides that they can't stay in their bubble any longer. 

They get put into different classes this year, and suddenly Catra becomes Glimmer the weird kid and her friend Bow. Except Glimmer isn't really weird anymore, but if you ate a bug in the sandbox in third grade then nicknames tended to stick. It's still weird at first, a Glimmer-and-Bow-shaped peg stuck into a Catra-shaped hole, but Adora finds that she gets used to their friendship quickly.

Catra makes new friends as fast as she does, only because Scorpia is insistent and Entrapta just lets herself be tugged along with the flow. She misses Adora sometimes, but shoves it aside to pay attention when Entrapta demonstrates the desk-cleaning robot she built from scratch.

It should have only been natural that they drifted apart, but the opposite happens. The distance between Catra and Adora grows from natural to magnetic, always pulling together like opposite poles whenever they can.

Adora joins the basketball team for something to do outside of class. Catra picks up the guitar with her saved allowance, always practicing on the bleachers while Adora trains with her team. She's even friends with Glimmer and Bow now, only grumbling minimally when they come to sit with her during Adora's games.

Catra tries to be annoyed that Adora is the school's new star athlete and has girls and boys falling at her feet, that their laundry hamper is always filled with sweaty, mud-streaked uniforms, and that she's the one who has to work the knots and cramps out of Adora's sore muscles at night.

She tries to be annoyed, but fails so miserably whenever Adora spots her in the bleachers and runs over for a hug, always sweaty and stinky but still the same Adora she's known since they were scrawny kids.

Because when they fall into the same bed at night, on the space-themed bed sheets they've had since forever, Catra is reminded that she's the only one who's ever gotten to see Adora like this. Adora half-asleep, eyelashes fluttering while she tells Catra about her day in slurred whispers. Adora who tangles their legs together, who snores on days she's extra tired, who sleeps with Catra in her arms, pressed up gently against her.

There's that feeling in Catra's chest again, seeing Adora like this, and it grows and grows until it looms big and heavy over the bed.

Age sixteen ends feeling like the worst in Catra's life because she loves Adora.

She loves Adora like she's seen in the movies, from first dances to kisses to weddings. She looks at Adora, ever bright and warm like a sunbeam, and wants it all like an ache that won't go away.

-

Age seventeen, Mermista from her Biology class is blushing, fidgeting with the flowers in her hand at the doorstep of the home.

Adora turns her down as gently as she can, but she accepts the flowers and they go for ice cream around the corner.

"I mean, I should've known better," Mermista laughs, embarrassed. Adora levels her with a questioning look around the popsicle she's on a mission to destroy. "You know," she says, gesturing around with her ice cream cone. "Catra and you have a thing. I just thought I'd try my luck, you know? I've seen you play a lot and I think you're really pretty."

Adora walks home in a daze, clutching a pretty bouquet of flowers and a parting kiss on the cheek from an equally pretty girl.

Catra is awake by then, mid-stretch when Adora opens the door. She looks happy, leaping out of bed without warning and it's only by muscle memory that Adora drops the bouquet and catches her in time.

"You went out early," Catra says, a purr beginning to rumble in her chest. She catches Mermista's scent and pulls away from where she was rubbing her face on Adora's collarbones.

"I met a friend," Adora offers as an explanation, and this moment feels important somehow. Catra is staring at her with wide eyes, shifting to get out of her arms but Adora holds her tighter. "Do you think Romeo and Juliet was stupid?" she asks, in some sort of convoluted, roundabout attempt to ask if Catra believes in love. Catra pauses, blinking in surprise for a second before she bursts out laughing.

"I'm serious!" Adora whines, but she's laughing along with Catra as they both fall into bed. They laugh until the air in their lungs run out, and then Catra is meaning to ask what Adora really meant but Adora grabs her hand first. Her eyes are so, so blue and Catra finds herself sinking. "Wanna go to the creek?"

-

The creek is a little colder this time of the year than when they found it in the summer four years ago. Catra has grown into herself with grace, no longer gangly and awkward at being something other than human. She's all lithe body and toned muscle, skipping ahead easily over the tricky twists and turns of root systems and fallen logs without faltering once. Adora has changed a fair bit herself. She's bulked up with muscle, broad-shouldered and clumsy, ambling along at her own pace across the ground and taking extra care to avoid the jutting tree roots.

Catra reaches the creek first, and by the time Adora breaks the tree line she's already in her bra and underwear, wading up to her calves as she looks for trout to chase after. 

Adora's mouth is dry when she goes splashing in after Catra.

"Hey Adora," Catra says, turning with a wide grin on her face when Adora comes up beside her. Her hands rest on Adora's waist, pulling her to the left, and Adora feels as if someone has hooked their thumbs into her soul and unravelled it slowly but surely out of her body. She feels empty like this now, not at all herself and brain numb with the sensation of Catra's warm fingers pressed into the skin of her hips just above the waistband of her boyshorts.

And then Catra speaks, winding an arm around Adora's middle and pressing her chest flush against Adora's back so she can lean over her shoulder to point out a large bullfrog near the bank.

Her heart thuds painfully in her chest, so loud that Catra must be able to hear it. 

"Catra," she starts, face hot with the realisation that she's about to do something horrible. 

Catra stops talking about the frog. "Are you scared of it?" she asks, confused. "We can get out of the water. I think there's a spot upstr–"

" _Catra_ ," she says again, firmer this time, and Catra finally shuts up. The world goes very still, quiet save for the rushing creek water and the birdsong in the wind. Adora knows this is important. Her brain scrambles to find the right thing to say, because every second that ticks by, Catra is shifting nervously behind her.

She shuts her eyes to think. She thinks about the creek that exists because of them, and the drawing pinned up over their study desk. She thinks of Catra, and all the spaces in Adora's life she has come to reside in.

"I love you," she finally says, twisting about in Catra's arms so she can get a look at her best friend's face.

Catra's heart stutters to a complete stop. She tries and fails to swallow past the dry lump in her throat, searching Adora's face for any hint that she's joking.

"Like as a friend?" she croaks out, embarrassed when the bullfrog lets out a perfectly-timed echoing croak of its own. That _traitor._

"No like," Adora bites her lip. "As more than friends, unless you don't feel the same, then it's really just fine, like super peachy, because it's totally okay, like–"

"Adora, stop," she groans, all the panicked weight leaving her body now that she knows they're on the same page. 

Adora stares at her wide-eyed for a second, then Catra's arms are snaking around her waist again and she takes it as her cue to lean in. 

Kissing Catra is easy. It's soft and messy until they find a rhythm that works and then their lips are parting wider and Adora's tongue traces the tip of Catra's fangs before Catra nips at her bottom lip in retaliation. 

Kissing Catra is easy, warm and all too familiar in the ways Adora has come to know as home.

Loving Catra is easier, like taking the same weathered path through the trees, back to a place that exists just for them.

**Author's Note:**

> yes i wanted to talk about metaphysics so i wrote a fic about it


End file.
